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What role does ethics play in American foreign policy? The advent of the Trump Administration has raised this from a theoretical question to front page news. Should ethics even play a role, or should we only focus on defending our material interests? In
Do Morals Matter? Joseph S. Nye provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of how modern American presidents have-and have not-incorporated ethics into their foreign policy. Nye examines each presidency during the American era after 1945 and scores them on the success they achieved in implementing an ethical foreign policy. Alongside this, he also evaluates their leadership qualities, explaining which approaches work and which ones do not.
List of contents
- Chapter 1: American Foreign Policy Ethical Traditions
- Chapter 2: What is a Moral Foreign Policy?
- Chapter 3: The Founders
- Chapter 4: The Vietnam Era
- Chapter 5: Post Vietnam
- Chapter 7: The Unipolar Moment
- Chapter 8: The 21st Century Diffusion of Power
- Chapter 9: American Foreign Policy and the Future Order
About the author
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and a Deputy Under Secretary of State. His most recent books include The Powers to Lead, The Future of Power, Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era, and The Power Game: a Washington Novel. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers.
Summary
A concise yet penetrating analysis of how modern American presidents have--and have not--incorporated ethics into their foreign policy.
Americans constantly make moral judgments about presidents and foreign policy. Unfortunately, many of these assessments are poorly thought through. In Do Morals Matter?, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of the role of ethics in US foreign policy since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency onward. Nye works through each presidency from FDR to Trump and scores their foreign policy on three ethical dimensions: their intentions, the means they used, and the consequences of their decisions. He also evaluates their leadership qualities, elaborating on which approaches work and which ones do not. Regardless of a president's policy preference, Nye shows that each one was not fully constrained by the structure of the system and actually had choices. Since we so often apply moral reasoning to foreign policy, Nye suggests how to do it better. Most importantly, he shows that presidents need to factor in both the political context and the availability of resources when deciding how to implement an ethical policy-especially in a future international system that presents not only great power competition from China and Russia, but a host of additional transnational threats.
Additional text
A lucid, thoughtful and original examination of the role morality plays as American presidents shape their foreign policy. As Professor Nye shows convincingly in this highly readable book, leaders and citizens alike make assumptions, decisions and judgments which reflect their own views about what is good and bad. Yet again he has contributed much to our better understanding of international relations.
